The repository was created by a team of Operational Excellence experts through an ongoing process dating back from the 1990s, where the "Class A" concept was made popular by pioneering firms in Operational Excellence. It benefited from access from access to repositories from dozens of multinational companies as well as multiple SMEs throughout the years.

The Evalu+ team uses a set of carefully selected publications and discussion forums to permanently identify emerging new best practices. These are reviewed on an ongoing basis and a decision is made once a year on which updates will be published in the upcoming release.

An updated version of the Repository is published each year, in January.

No. The Repository contains universal excellence criteria, that are not specific to a particular industry. Each criterion may or may not apply depending on the operational content of a particular company which apply to any company. The idea of maintaining different repository by industry was analyzed and eventually ruled out, primarily because these would be too restrictive for most companies, as they typically have activities in multiple industries. Because we elected to focus on one single, universal repository, this means that the customization of the repository to reflect the specifics of a company operational context is an important activity, which we made very easy to perform through the application.

Describing maturity stages was originally considered but was eventually ruled out because such stages tended to create an excessively rigid framework, in many cases not representative to the various possible paths leading to enabling a best practice.

Yes. To do so, export the Repository to Excel, change the sections and sub-sections and import back the updated version. The redefined sections and/or sub-sections will show up as the new Repository "tree structure".

Absolutely. It is extremely easy to add, edit or remove Repository items. You can also copy and paste your own content within the repository at will.

We have attached illustration/explanation slides to the criteria that we felt were the least likely to be self-explanatory or whose best practice could be misunderstood. We plan to further enrich the illustration/explanation knowledgebase in the upcoming releases.

Yes, the easy and best way is to copy and paste a hyperlink withing the illustration/explanation field, pointing to your own content for each applicable excellence criterion.

Yes, you can customize the repository either directly in the application or export it to Excel, customize it in Excel and import the customized version back in the application. The only downside of using Excel instead of the application is that when you want to edit a cell you will have to rewrite its content in its entirety, whereas in the application you can delete some portions and blend the remaining content with content pasted from another source.

To generate the strongest possible consensus on the Repository across a large population, it is recommended to proceed as follows: 1) Perform an initial review of the Repository with a small group to perform obvious preliminary adjustments ; 2) Export the adjusted repository to Excel ; 3) Add to the Excel version a "Comment" column and send the file to your targeted population, setting a deadline for comments and the "silence = approval" rule ; 4) analyze responses and systematically follow up with the comment providers ; 5) Decide which Repository items needs to be modified, added or removed and make the corresponding change in the application ; 6) Export the modified version back to Excel and forward it to the targeted population for final review before freeze.

Evalu+ offers educational sessions on the repository. Please contact us for further details.

Not necessarily. To make an optimal decision, we suggest you to review the Operation Excellence Compass Repository in detail through a free trial, taking time to complete a mapping with your own repository. At the end of the period you can then decide whether you prefer to simply replace the Repository by your own (in this case you should opt for the base Evalu+ license) or if you'd like to blend the two (in this case you should opt for the Operational Excellence Compass license).

Absolutely. If you feel that you are in a position to increase the quality of the repository, you can submit enhancement suggestions through the Evalu+ website. These can be changes to existing criteria, addition of new criteria, or addition of illustration material of The Evalu+ team will review the suggestions received on a regular basis and decide which one will be taken into account in the next publication. You will in any event receive a feedback from the Evalu+ team, with a detailed justification should we decide not to use your suggestion. If your enhancement suggestions are retained to be incorporated in the next repository version, your name will appear in the release notes, specifying the nature of your contribution. Your name will also be mentioned in the repository itself, visible to any company licensing the Evalu+ Operational Excellence Compass application.